All of meadComposition's Comments + Replies

I have been able to land interviews at a rate of about 8/65 or 12% of the positions I apply to.  My main assumption is that the timing of COVID-19 is bad, and I'm also only looking at positions in my geographical area of Toronto.  It's also possible that I was overconfident early on and didn't prep enough for the interviews I got, which often involved general coding challenges that depended on data structures and algorithms that I hadn't studied since undergrad, as well as ML fundamentals for things like PCA that I hadn't touched in a long time as my research work has been deep learning focused. As for corporate politics and how to handle them rationally, I'm not entirely sure I can be much help, as to be honest, I'm not entirely clear on what happened to cause the situation that I got myself into. Perhaps the thing I could suggest is to be tactful and avoid giving people an excuse or opportunity to side line you, and never assume that you can work with anyone without issue, because toxic or hostile managers especially can make you miserable and prevent you from being successful, and noticing such people in advance and avoiding having to depend on their performance appraisals is probably a good idea. Most people in business seem focused on performing and getting results, and some of them are wary of others who could overtake them, and so you need to balance showing your value with not seeming threatening to their position.  I was in an awkward position that my immediate manager and I didn't get along, but the director of the department who originally hired me protected me from too much reprisal.  However, he needed me to perform better to be able to advocate for me effectively, and it was difficult to do so under the person I was directly under. Such situations can arise and get quite complicated.  I wish I could say you can use the tools of rationality to reason with anyone and convince them to work cooperatively on team goals, but I found that some people are